Thursday, 20 July 2017

THE LIFESTYLE EDIT: TRANSIENCE STUDIO

Today I'm excited to be featuring an interview with my super talented friend May Tremain; a textiles and ceramics designer who runs Transience Studio. As well as the interview, there is a preview of some of the beautiful pieces May has been busy making and an account of my attempt at weaving at one of workshops at Transience Studio.

Tell us a little about yourself and your design background

I have been crafting all my life and have always had an interest in ceramics and textiles. I graduated in 2015 in Textiles for Fashion and Interiors from UCA and have been working on my personal projects ever since.

What's the studio focus?

Transience Studios is a creative practice focusing on simplicity as the premise for its designs. We make textile and ceramic homewares for interiors. Using a variety of traditional and contemporary craft techniques ranging from textiles, woodwork and ceramics to digital technologies, Transience Studio develops projects that reflect on society, our surroundings and the speed of contemporary life. Every project is overtaken with personalised care and attention to detail, allowing the projects to evolve at their natural speed, each step reflecting contemporary concerns and considered design.

What are you favourite pieces to make?

I particularly like making Raku bowls (example in the picture below) because I love the evocative look that this technique renders and the rustic feel of the pieces.

What inspires your work?

I work from my own photography and develop my work from them. I carry my camera and phone everywhere I go and keep taking pictures, but I also work from abstract ideas. I am particularly influenced by the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi: everything is transient, imperfect and incomplete and there is a beauty in that, that's where the name of the studio comes from. Scandinavian rustic simplicity deeply appeals to me as well. I try to make objects with character but simple, handmade with a very human feel to them, they are unrefined and imperfect. Currently I am exploring the sense of place through a project inspired my local community and places I visit.

Workshops and classes

Transience Studio will be hosting hand weaving workshops from September onwards and there are other workshops in the process of being organised. Stay tuned for more details.

I recently attended a weaving workshop at Transience Studio and it was great to spend an evening creating and have something to take home. I'd wanted to try my hand at weaving for a while, so I jumped at the chance to give it a go. I'd had a particularly stressful day at work and was rushing to the studio and I arrived at the class quite flustered. May was such a patient teacher though and clearly showed us what to do and we were soon making our own wall hangings. Weaving is great for mindfulness and in no time I had left the stresses of the day behind and was fully focused on the weaving, the colours to use and the different stitches to try. We all left the class feeling relaxed, happy with our first attempts at weaving and full of delicious banana cake.

If you'd like to see May's work for yourself and grab some of the lovely one-off pieces, you'll have a chance this weekend (22-23 July) as Transience Studio will be exhibiting at The London Artisan market in the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane. May is kindly offering my readers a 10% discount at the show and online with the code Justlovely10% so not to worry if you can't make it to the Artisan market, you'll still be able to order the beautiful ceramics.The code will be valid from 24 July until the end of August and you'll also be able to apply the discount code when booking onto a workshop.

Transience Studio are also happy to take commissions and collaborations, just drop them an email at info@transiencestudio.com Jx*Photo credit: Transience Studio photos 1, 2, 4-7 and 13-15